~ firearms and fermentation

Monthly Archives: August 2014

Last night I was lucky enough to find a watering hole with both Old Blowhard and Rhetoric from Diageo. You may recall earlier in the month I wrote about Barterhouse. Old Blowhard has come and gone and from what I understand will not resurface. Rhetoric will have several releases and this first is a 20 year release. Old Blowhard was interesting with oak, coconut, vanilla, char and a strong burn post consumption, but I certainly would be disappointed if I had spent $75 on a fifth of it. That coconut character was off-putting to me and the post consumption burn just didn’t cut it. Barterhouse was much better and as I mentioned I thought it was overpriced.

Move forward to Rhetoric which has a $100 tag in most liquor stores. To me it was all sherry, all the time and just didn’t cut it. For $100 I could buy five bottles of Buffalo Trace or three bottles of Four Roses Single Barrel. I’m not sure I’d want to pay $30 for a bottle of it. It just lacked depth and character and was kinda boring. At least Old Blowhard and Barterhouse were not boring. Life’s too short for boring. So my $0.02 on the Diageo Orphan Barrel series thus far is skip it unless you find it on sale. It is certainly nice to be able to sample some 20+ year-old Bourbon’s, but somewhere in the back of my head I remember 20 years ago was only 1994 so it ain’t that old. 😉

Someone please explain to me why Newcastle Brown Ale comes in a clear bottle. I was at a reception last night and it was the best beer offered of a bad bunch and the mercaptan aroma was rampant. You would think they would know by now a clear bottle allows the beer to become lightstruck and would switch to a dark bottle. I’m not exactly sure where this beer saw the light, but it did and skunk is not a great aroma to have floating around. One saving grace is there were no glasses available so some of the aroma was lacking due to consumption straight from the bottle.

What I want to talk about today is a bit premature, so I thought I would focus squarely on the media and I am going to use the tragedy in Ferguson, MO as a reference. Here are the facts as I know and understand them. A robbery occurred where cigars were stolen and a store employee was assaulted by a large man. A police officer completed a call to a residence where a child was not breathing properly and discovered two men walking down the middle of the street and he asked them to move to the sidewalk. They told him they were almost at their destination and refused to stop jaywalking. As the officer was driving away a call came over the radio about the robbery and assault and he realized the description matched that of the men walking in the street and went to confront them. As he was exiting the vehicle the larger man assaulted the officer and they struggled for his gun and a shot went off inside the car. After the shot the two men began to leave and words were exchanged between the larger man and the officer. The larger man was subsequently shot and killed by the officer. Some eyewitnesses said he had his hands up and was surrendering facing away from the officer, others say he was charging the officer. Those are the facts as I know them.

I’m not going to try to find the sources, but one media outlet keeps saying, “A teenager was slain.” Perhaps it would be right to call an 18 year-old a teenager, but somehow the media looses sight of the fact when someone is 18 and they commit a crime they are tried as an adult. So why wouldn’t the media say an 18 year-old man was slain, or a young adult was slain? Because it would not capture your attention. Now let’s take a look for a minute at the word slain. To most of us it means the act which created the death was illegal or immoral. It has yet to be proven if the officer was right in his actions or not, but if he was, the man wasn’t slain, he was shot and killed. At the core it is media sensationalism. Why not simply state the facts and avoid all the sensationalism?

If you want to know who I blame for what is currently happening in Ferguson, MO it is the media fueling the fire with reports which spin the news into something it is not. All these events could have been avoided if the media instead of showing a smiling teenager and one in cap and gown, would have taken the time to do a little research into his background or the background of the man he was with at the time. I don’t believe we should smear the memory of a young man taken far too soon, but we also should not paint a picture of a saint with a halo when there was no halo in the first place. No one is going to come away pleased after this incident, not the family of the deceased, not the police, not the officer, no one, but the media will not be held accountable for the riots they incited by putting their spin on the facts.

I’ve mentionedBaker’s Bourbon in the past, but have not really discussed the Bourbon itself. As much as I dislike Booker’s, I really do enjoy Baker’s. Baker’s is one of the Beam Brands Small Batch Group (Knob Creek, Basil Hayden’s, Booker’s, and Baker’s), and I enjoy all of them but Booker’s. Baker’s however is sweeter than Basil Hayden’s and much more complex and interesting than Knob Creek. Nowadays I try my Bourbon’s several different ways, neat, with a single ice-cube, and sometimes mixed with ginger. If that fails I make a Old Fashioned Ginger to drink up the bottle. With Baker’s it is good neat, but for some reason it blooms when poured over a single extra-large ice-cube. It goes from very good to wonderful in the blink of an eye. It could be the taming of the alcohol in the 107 proof Bourbon, or I just like how it highlights the caramel nature and spices and knocks down the sweetness ever so slightly. If you see of bottle of Baker’s it is well worth your time to try. I doubt you will be disappointed, but the price tag is generally in the $50 range so if you are on a budget, this is not inexpensive Bourbon. There are Bourbons in that price range which I prefer more, but Baker’s is no slouch. If you are so inclined, give it a whirl!

Last night we went to a restaurant and my wife asked that I suggest a beer she would like and I came up with a big old goose egg. The beers they had listed by style were mostly macro and the locals were not something she really loves. There were some which were interesting, but only names were given and since they were slightly obscure locals it would have taken an involved Untappd session to figure out the styles for each beer. With names like Moravian Rhapsody, Blatherskite and Big Squeeze I am sure I could have figured it out, but my suggestion for restaurants with beer lists would be to add the style to the name or some idea of the style to make it easier for guests to decide. If you’re in the mood for a Witbier and nothing on the menu indicates the style the best you can do is guess. Even better would be a short description, but I would settle for just the style being listed. Help a brother out!

When they first came out I snagged a Verscarry and later I won one on their Facebook page. At first I was enamored by the lack of weight and bulk, but when I put my Ruger SR9C on it the immediate thing I noticed were the slide serrations catch on clothing. It is not a fault of the Versacarry directly, but in a way it is. A smooth slide would not catch, but a serrated slide might and you would not have those concerns in a normal leather or kydex holster. The other thing which I find potentially dangerous is the lack of a trigger cover on the old models and a one side trigger cover on the new ones. I really believe anything you can do to keep fingers and clothing outside the trigger guard is a positive. That may make you believe I don’t think the Versacarry is a worthwhile product. I never said anything close to that. I think with the right firearm it might be just the ticket. Using the Ruger LCP as our discussion point the LCP has such a strong trigger pull it is almost impossible to pull it without actually wanting to pull the trigger. The slide is rather smooth and so I believe it would be a good candidate for a Versacarry. Another good one would be a Radom P64. The P64 has a smooth slide and the trigger pull double action is a monster even with the springs replaced. It would work very well with a Versacarry. Another reason to have one would be to have less bulk from a standard holster. It is kinda nice to clip it to the pocket on some cargo shorts. So like all holsters this one certainly has a place, you simply have to decide if it is right for you.

So you think you should open up a brewery because you’re a hipster and it is the trendy thing to do, or you won a ribbon at a homebrew competition with your 15 grain/4 hop Belgian concoction and now think you are ready for the big time. News flash, your friends likely do not know what a great beer tastes like and no one is going to give you the feedback you deserve, your beer is average or worse.

If you are planning on opening a brewery today, the beer must not be average, you must be better than average or you will see your dreams ground to dust. If the tap is slow-moving at a draft house once that keg kicks something else will be put on the tap. If the beer languishes on the shelf of a bottle shop because it is an IPA and the store has a gazillion other IPAs just like it eventually the store will call the distributor and tell them to not bring that one back again. It is like being a one in a million kind of guy in China and there are a million other guys just like you. So if you plan to open a brewery, do it right the first time and kick it in the nads. I’ve seen too many lineups roll out with Pale, Stout, Blonde, IPA, etc. and all the brews are meh. I don’t go back for a second pint of ok beer, I go back for a second pint and tell my friends about beer which is above average. Many of you will make it for a while because of social media, friends, and loyalty and I applaud you for those efforts. Eventually you’ll figure out you cannot expand because there is nowhere for you to go. The brewery down the street is putting out better and more consistent products and you have been left in the dust. So before you jump in head first you might want to test the water with a toe. Look around, is the area saturated with a certain style, brew something different, something innovative. Do something which separates you from all the other craft breweries in the area and the beer geeks will beat a path to your door.

I can tell you one simple thing you can do which will differentiate you from the rest immediately, brew beer which is above average! If you don’t you’ll swim in a sea of mediocrity.

So here we are, 9 years and one day since Pop The Cap was signed into law and my how times have changed. I remember Chimay was the first brewery to be widely distributed across the state followed shortly by a beer from Highland Brewing, an 8% Scotch Ale named Tasgall. As of yesterday we now have 130 breweries in NC and the list continues to grow. I’m not sure what we might have planned for the 10 year anniversary, but I sure hope we plan something. I know I celebrate the change in the law almost every day!

I had a discussion yesterday with an old friend and it became apparent a refresher on how to find the best deals on firearms might be in order. I’ve hinted around at several methods over time, but guess I haven’t spelled it out before. First off you must decide if you want to buy local or buy online. There are pros and cons to both methods. I typically let the price decide since I don’t have a local gun store nearby who treats me right each and every time. If you buy local you will more than likely have to pay taxes when you purchase. You know what your tax rate is so figure that into the cost. In NC we are required to report out of state purchases on our taxes and pay the tax. In reality most people fudge factor that reporting since they don’t want to keep up with everything they bought on the internet. If you buy online you will have to ship the firearm and then pay to have it transferred at an FFL. I have chosen a local FFL for my transfers due to their price being reasonable and they call me the second the firearm arrives. Often I get to open the packaging.

Before you decide upon local or online you should determine a reasonable price. The easiest method I have found to find that price is by checking a few websites. Bud’s Guns, GunBroker, and CTD are easy places to find prices. I have not yet bought from Bud’s and will never again buy from CTD. So after a few minutes searching you should now have the budget. Now let’s find the very best deal possible.

I like to start by doing a search on SlickGuns. At times the deal listed will be over, but it will typically let you know just how low the price has been. You can always go to your local shop and use that as a bargaining tool however getting firearms for the past year has been difficult and some shops are just not willing to haggle. Their prices are take it or leave it and the nice thing is you can always walk away and return later if needed. After checking SlickGuns I typically check a few other places just to be sure. I like to check Sportsman’s Outdoor Superstore, Lanbo’s Armory, PSA, and CDNN. Keep in mind if you find a great deal to include the shipping costs, the transfer costs, and if the store is in your state you may still owe sales tax. Sometimes there are hidden fees which I find irritating. I was about to purchase a firearm from an online store and they had two prices, a CC price and a cash price. So to get the best deal I was going to have to mail them a cashier’s check or a money order. Neither of those are expensive, but they are costs which factor in the deal. Then when I went to check out shipping was free, but insurance on the firearm was not. Basically the CC up charge and the insurance charge added was a deal breaker. The insurance disclaimer said, “If customers choose not to add insurance, the store is not responsible for any lost/damaged shipping items.” Bah humbug on that line of thinking. I didn’t ship it, I didn’t package it, I won’t even have proof you sent it, how can I be the responsible party?

So if you find a screaming deal do a little checking to be sure it is the firearm you want and there are no hidden fees or issues. I’ve purchased many firearms online and have never had one issues, but I do my homework beforehand. I’ve gotten some screaming deals and I’ve gotten firearms online I could not locate elsewhere so don’t be afraid of the web.

Back in September I posted a Wishlist. Then in March I updated the list. I got to thinking about it today and some things on my list have been procured while others are still elusive due to either price or scarcity. Currently my list looks like:

SAA – .44-40

Uberti Buntline – .44-40

1873 Winchester replica – .44-40

Ruger Red Label – 12 gauge

Benelli Ethos – 12 gauge

Rossi Rio Grande – .410

What I find interesting about the list is only two firearms on it are handguns and both are in .44-40. The SAA comes in many replica variants and I just haven’t found the one I want. The Buntline is a ridiculous pistol with an 18″ barrel. I saw one on GunBroker and thought it would relist for less, but it never came back. Since then that may be the only one I have seen.

Lately I’ve been on the lookout for an 1873 Winchester in .44-40. I like the case hardened look and thus far have only seen a few which appeal. There have been a few where the appearance wasn’t what I was after and I let them go. It is a wishlist after all so I can be choosy.

The last three are firearms I definitely do not need. A Ruger Red Label is a thing of beauty and the Benelli Ethos is a fine-looking shotgun. Both are more money than I care to spend so the chances of adding them to the safe are slim. the Rossi Rio Grande is affordable, but again, something I really don’t need. If I find one for a song I might sing, but otherwise paying full boat is out.

So there you have it, the current wish list. I’m sure something else will pop up and catch my eye, but currently that’s what I’m after. What’s on your Wishlist?